A good woman is not hard to find

By Hsu Chia-ching, Taipei Times, Wednesday 8 March
2000, Page 8

Although Taiwan's women are receiving more and more recognition of
their abilities in many areas, there are still many fields where the
proportion of men and women is unbalanced and women are in the
minority. In recent years, we in the women's movement have
realized that one big issue is the dearth of women in leadership
positions, especially in political life.

In response to complaints, although nobody comes right out and says
that women are bad leaders, we are often told that it takes time to
build up enough talent, that we should be patient and that the day for
female leadership will come soon.

I feel this attitude is misguided, because there are so many talented
women who are already well qualified for the highest levels of
leadership. Therefore, on this Women's Day, I want to express my
wish that when the Womens' Day comes around next year, Taiwan will
have set a world first by installing an all-female Cabinet to lead us
into a new era.

I sincerely call on all the presidential candidates to consider
seriously the idea of forming an all-female Executive Yuan.

This idea is not totally fanciful. In fact, I have drawn up a list of
my favorite candidates for all the major ministries and councils of
the Executive Yuan. The minor agencies (some of which should be
abolished anyway, such as the Mongolian and Tibetan Affairs
Commission) could be allocated as positions for token men -- after
all, these are the positions they usually leave for token women
nowadays!

Here is my wish list:

Minister of Foreign Affairs:

Annette Lu (%Gå��%@篆デå��ダ緬デå��ダ踝
蕭), Commissioner of Taoyuan County

Minister of the Interior:

Chen Chu (%Gå��%@踝蕭デå��ダ踝蕭, director,
Kaohsiung City Bureau of Social Affairs; former

director of Taipei City Bureau of Social Affairs

Minister of Economic Affairs:

Shirley Kuo (%Gå��%@踝蕭デå��ダ踝蕭), minister
without portfolio; former minister of finance and chairwoman of the
Council for Economic Planning and Development

And the premier? Since the political environment today is so complex
and the government might not be able to count on majority support in
the Legislative Yuan, I would suggest Chang Po-ya
(%Gå��ç® å��%@調塚蕭). She is not affiliated with any
party and her administrative experience is unparalleled -- she served
two terms as mayor of Chiayi and seven years as director-general of
the Department of Health, before returning to Chiayi as mayor.

If most people feel that we need a person like Lee Yuan-tseh
(%Gå��ï¿½%@?%Gå��ï¿½%@/CHINESE>) who enjoys
unparalleled social esteem and confidence, there is also a female
alternative: Master Cheng Yen (%Gå��%@踝蕭デå��ダ
糊デå��ダ緞) of the Tzu-chi Foundation. The pity is that
like Dr Lee, she probably has no interest in serving.

There will inevitably be a chorus of complaints about the composition
of this list: Why have you included X but left out Y?, You
have concentrated only on your own side of the political spectrum,
etc.

I freely admit all of these errors. But these complaints only prove
the fact that there are certainly more than enough excellent women
available to lead our country.

In fact, among such an abundance, choosing such a small number among
them is a painful and difficult task.

In any case, I think few objective observers could honestly say that
they think this Cabinet would do any worse than the current one, and
thus the point is made: the women of Taiwan are ready for government,
today!

Chia-ching Hsu is the secretary-general of the League of Taiwan
Women.